Jealous of Steinbeck

I just spent the night reading John Stienbeck's novella THE PEARL. I picked it up at a bookstore over the break (along with Salinger's FRANNY AND ZOOEY which I read last week (it was great)). THE PEARL is great because of how simple it is. I'm jealous of this kind of writing because it's so effective and streamlined. Basically the total opposite of all the writing going on today. Writer's seem to think that complication is always a good thing. Layers of dense vocabulary, gnarled plotting, and complex structure can often bury a writer's connection to the reader. Steinbeck's stuff isn't simple by any means. There is a complex theme and subtle symbolism/allegory...the scenes are painted clearly and the characters are well established with a minimum of words/gimmicks. I wish I could do that. Every time I try, it just seems like I'm leaving things out. Or worse, it makes it seem like I don't know what I'm doing (which, of course, I don't...but I don't need to hang a sign).

There's some irony about me buying/reading/enjoying this book. Just a week before the Thanksgiving break we had to read THE GRAPES OF WRATH for American Literature II. Of course, I didn't. Weird because in theory I should want to read this book...but for some reason Steinbeck's long fiction is of no interest to me. Kinda like Fitzgerald's work...I love THE GREAT GATSBY (it's my favorite book) but I have no interest whatsoever in the rest of his work. I'm not sure why that is. Anyway, some authors just seem to have better short stories...Stephen King is like that. I hate his novels (for the most part) but his short stuff is great. Speaking of which, my next read is CELL which will probably be long and bloody. But I'm a sucker, I have to read it (it's going to be a movie in year or so).